PCTips Box

Windows Vista RTM has had quite a rough ride throughout 2007, with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Stave Ballmer acknowledging software and hardware incompatibility problems. And while Service Pack 1 is essentially designed to soften all the rough edges of the latest Windows client, Vista SP1 is not without problems of its own. In this regard, Microsoft informed of a glitch in the Configuration Data store on Vista SP1 and Vista RTM which when the user attempts to resume a copy of the operating system from hibernation is instead informed that the platform was shutdown.

“When you wake a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) from hibernation, you may receive the following error message: ‘System was shutdown unexpectedly’,” Microsoft explained. “This issue occurs when the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store contains incorrect information for the Resume from Hibernate entry.” (more…)

Windows Vista computers that come equipped with more than 4 GB of system memory have limited shut-down options. Essentially, the Hibernate option is no longer available on Vista machines that feature in excess of 4 GB of RAM. This scenario affects both the 32-bit and the 64-bit editions of Vista, but at the same time also Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has confirmed that the issue is related to the large quantity of random access memory.

“This issue occurs because hibernation is disabled on computers that have more than 4 GB of RAM. Hibernation requires sufficient disk space to contain the contents of the computer’s memory. Performance is poor on a computer that has more than 4 GB of memory and that has support for hibernation. (more…)

Step 1:
The biggest problem is that almost every time you install new software, it loads when you boot. I have applications that I rarely use like optical character recognition, and those I turn to several times a day like MS Outlook. By simply loading software only when you need it, you can cut your boot time significantly. To see what is loading now and to pick and choose in Windows XP click on your Start Menu. Go to Run. Type: msconfig. You’ll be presented with tabs. You’re probably operating under Normal Start Up which loads all device drivers and services. Choose Selective Startup instead. Under Selective Startup I’ve checked Process System.INI file, Process Win.INI.file, Load System Services, Load Startup Intems and Use Original Boot.INI. If you are an advanced user and you know what you are doing you can select or deselect these boxes as you choose. If you click everything except Services and then click disable all, followed by OK, you’ll end up booting in Safe Mode. Our goal here is to cut back on the Start Up programs. Click that tab. There you’ll find a long list of applications like ALCMTR and hpsysdrv. I took the time to enter each of them in Google to search for what they did. Sites like processlibrary.com proved useful in determining whether or not I should enable or disable the applications on booting. Right now I’ve only selected about a third of those listed. My machine boots faster and I’ve notice no lack of performance. (more…)

Windows places a file on your hard drive that it uses when your computer goes into hibernation mode. If you do not use hibernation mode, or your computer does not properly support it, you may want to disable hibernation and clear the file off your hard drive to free up some space (the file will use as much space as you have in physical memory, so if you have 1GB of RAM, it’s going to use 1GB of your hard drive space). (more…)

Hibernation is not made unavailable when you set the value of the Hibernate after setting to Never by using the Power Options item in Control Panel.

To make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue. (more…)

I have found my first bug in the final code of Windows Vista. A few weeks ago after my hard drive was getting low on space I ran disk cleanup to try to delete some unneeded files. Since I needed a lot of space fast I also checked the option to clear my hibernation file. It turns out that was a big mistake.

After clearing my hibernation file my laptops ability to hibernate was destroyed. It was so badly damaged that I could not get to the control panel hibernation settings to turn it back on. Thanks Disk Cleanup! (more…)